Thailand's exports of textiles and garments are likely to grow 4-5 percent this year although rising fuel prices have affected production cost, according to the Textile Industry Development Institute.

Virat Tandejanurat, director of the institute, said on Friday that in the first quarter of this year, the country's textile and garment exports increased by around 9-10 percent from that of the same quarter of last year.

He was confident that the country's textile this year would continue to expand by 4-5 percent from the total value of 6.7 billion U.S. dollars last year.

The institute shared a common view with the private sector that the state sector should step up efforts in pushing forwards the signing of the proposed free trade area (FTA) pact between Thailand and Japan as soon as possible.

The implementation of the Thai-Japanese FTA would help increase the country's textile exports by 50 percent from the annual value of 10 billion baht (263 million U.S. dollars) at present, said Virat.

Currently, Japan imports around 93 percent of textiles from China and 7 percent from many other countries, including Thailand.

The signing of FTA with Japan would definitely help boost Thailand's exports of textiles to the Japanese market, added Virat.